Oh, and that Bambi story is horrific BTW. I’m not surprised about Disney doing it - they have a long history of awful revisionism with their animated classics’ “restorations” but I would never have believed Mr. Harris would condone something like that.
Disney did not do it. That was not Disney’s decision. It was the restoration team’s. In fact, all of the Disney restorations went back to their original title sequences from before Disney had Buena Vista as a release arm. The early films were released by RKO and RKO is credited at the head of the films. While he didn’t state it directly, his tone when he spoke implied that this was not the way Disney wanted it, but they were over-ruled and the restoration team had complete freedom. But that could have just been what I inferred.
And that is why I brought up the notion of “ethics” in restoration. You obviously have a much more “purist” point of view. But it is not one shared by most people who do film restoration professionally. In Spartacus, they added back the scene with Tony Curtis and Lawrence Olivier about snails and oysters which was meant to imply that Crassus was bisexual. The Legion of Decency and Motion Picture Production Code objected and the scene was cut before the film’s release. Even though the filmmakers wanted it in there. The restoration team found the negative, but the soundtrack was lost for the scene. So they had Tony Curtis re-record his part. Since Olivier was dead they had Anthony Hopkins who was once Olivier’s protege to do an impression. Should they have not put the scene back just to replicate the original release even though it was not what the filmmakers wanted?
And I disagree with you about the quality of the LPP. When Darth goes up to Needah to ask about the shuttle, I noticed that Darth was considerably darker. I thought, “Wait, this wasn’t changed, was it?” I then went to your photo comparisons to see that it was in fact from the LPP. You also praised the Silver Screen Theatrical Version that Team Negative1 did saying it was better than the Despecialized 2.5. But I found it to be grainy, soft, and undersaturated compared to yours. Maybe that is because I have seen the original version of Star Wars three times. Every time was in a movie Palace with 1,000-2,000 seats and a new print (Once in 70mm, the other two times 35mm).
Oh, BTW you reference “sub-par blue-screen optical compositing” in the Rancor scene. There was no blue screen used in that scene. It is all hand roto. That is why the Matte lines are so bad. Just thought you might like to know. But in the five shots I brought up, even in the current special editions, the comps have the same level of quality. That is why I question if they really were redone and probably only re-color timed.
But anyway, thank you for all your work.